Unblocking Your Brain With Storytelling
As my brain leaked out of my left ear onto my desk and started to drip gray globs onto my shoes I had a couple questions. Why must debits equal credits? What is gross margin? Why did my girlfriend dump me?
That was my first accounting class in college. To me accounting was complex. No, that’s not true, calculus was complex. Accounting was… magic. Not the fun and very real Harry Potter kind of magic. I mean the kind that is completely fabricated and changes willy nilly to take on any shape or form so that any answer you give you will always be wrong and your teacher will always be right. Bad magic.
I couldn’t grasp it. So, I spent countless hours (42 to be precise) in the accounting lab where I persistently asked the accounting lab volunteer people (not sure what to call them… tutors? psychiatrists?) to make the pain stop. I went day after day without any success. And then, it happened.
One of the volunteers pulled out a piece of paper and drew a beautiful diagram. He laid out Assets, Liabilities, and Owner’s Equity and then charted out the different sub accounts of which I shan’t bore you. The diagram he created was the framework I needed for all the accounting concepts to click. I memorized and used that framework again and again in subsequent accounting classes (yes, I took more). It was a beautiful moment. I even reunited with my girlfriend, who then broke up with me two more times (life is better now).
Communication is critical in our world. I know, that’s a novel concept and a deep thought but stick with me and I’ll tell you what all this has to do with storytelling.
Someone smarter than me (Ludwig Wittgenstein) said, “The limit of my language is the limit of my world.” For me, taking abstract ideas and feelings from my head and turning them into something intelligible that others understand can be difficult for me, but I don’t think I’m alone in the struggle (I’m hoping your head is nodding or you’re sharing this with someone who’s head will nod).
I believe that storytelling can help with this communication struggle. When you learn to speak the language of story you can simplify the complexity in your mind and explain it through story. I emphasize the word speak, because we already intuitively understand the language of stories. Wait, what’s the difference between understanding and speaking?
My friend in High School could understand Marshallese fluently (thanks to his mom), but he had a hard time speaking it because he could respond in English and didn’t have to try to speak Marshallese back to anyone. So, while stories are intuitive to consume/understand, they aren’t as intuitive to speak, at least to speak well.
I saw an image like the one above online and thought I’d re-create it myself. It hits home for me because of my horrible accounting experience, but also because that’s how I communicated my ideas when I was a teen (I still struggle, but I’ve gotten better).
My old teen videos were a jumbled mess of cringe and I would have to explain to my friends what was actually going on while they were watching my videos. Can you imagine how annoyed you’d get if Steven Spielberg had to sit down with you and explain to you what was going on in the movies Jurassic Park or Hook because they were so incoherent? (Okay, I actually wouldn’t mind if Spielberg sat down and talked to me about one of his movies, but that’s beside the point).
If you take the time to learn at least the basic concepts, ingredients, and framework(s) of storytelling you will improve your ability to communicate in your day-to-day, in your creative life, and even in job interviews (seriously). Also, just like I had my accounting psychiatrist friend to guide me, find yourself a guide who can help as you work on learning and improving your storytelling (*cough* I’m available *cough*).
There are so many good resources out there about storytelling, but I’m just gonna mention three:
- Here’s a free course by Kahn Academy: https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/pixar
- Here’s a good video I found that’s just 3 minutes long that describes how to use themes/plots to tell a story (no affiliation and there is some potential profanity): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ew8MmeNJe0
- Great book: Save The Cat! by Blake Snyder
